From a wider perspective, the simplest things have been most effective. Filing carers tax returns on-line (even though HMRC still send me paper forms every year!), and applying for tax discs without having to visit a post office (sorry).

Sorry its late.

Of course I think you’re spot on with your underlying themes: the Power of Information, reusable information, participation and mashups.

It will take quite a long time for the full implications of what you’re suggesting to sink in to the government IT community and its suppliers, and far longer for it to work its way through into reality.

But the people who matter are the customers, users, people. We will prevail and the first stage is to set it out.

I also appreciated what you said about Civil Serf: I thought you chose your words very well.

The former is difficult in government, but doesn’t need to be – if google employ enough smart people to be able to devote some to trying new ideas, government certainly does – it also helps in recruiting and retaining the best people, and motivating them to make a difference.

Harnessing the power of the crowd is not necessarily some naive communitarian view; it’s about enabling outsiders who’ve got special knowledge, or special reason to care, to contribute. People act solipsistically (in their own interest) and only when they believe it’s going to be effective. The self-interest can be about kudos (which drives Wikipedia editors), about their own lives (drives fixmystreet) or about basic utility (drives librarything and flickr).

In terms of government 2.0, you have two additional dimensions – clearly, there’s a suggestion that there’s a technology element; but there’s also a very important and far more challenging attitudinal element. 2.0 thinking is all about “why not?” – government usually has a pretty strong inbuilt resistance to “why not?” If 2.0 requires openness and opening up, government usually requires control – and the two don’t sit easily together. Government 2.0 probably requires many initiatives which need to be driven bottom up; and from the outside. It’s why mysociety have contributed so much; because they’re on the outside.

It’s always easy to argue with “why not?” but it’s about paradigm shift, so let’s try some “why not?” examples:
– Why don’t Local Police forces have to run websites where we, the local residents, can raise concerns or ideas in public forums, with the Police Chiefs having to go online and answer them regularly? This is about harnessing the power of concerned outsiders and taking it inside. Does the police chief in my area know that the non-999 number rings for 20 minutes or more before being answered, or often just cutting out? If they did, and did nothing about it, we’d be right to give them a hard time. If this could work for local police, perhaps Council leaders, chief executives and other senior officers. Perhaps health authority and transport chiefs too. It’s notable that British Retailers are so successful because their most senior executives are very close to their customers; they shop there, they shop in competitors and they continually monitor customer research – it’s harder to do that in the public sector, but 2.0 ideas make it possible.
– Why not do lobbying online? If a minister or senior civil servant told lobbyists “I’m not going to meet you privately; just come to my website and make your points/ask your questions in public”, they’d be just as able to listen to legitimate interest groups as now, but would no longer be as susceptible to the charms or one-sided arguments as currently. Instead, if Tesco wanted to convince you of something, and Asda saw what they were saying and made the counterargument, you’ve outsourced much of the cost and thinking to the most interested parties. If Tesco and Asda agree with each other, but the local shopkeepers and CPRE don’t agree with them, then the public get to see the debate too – and government gets a far wider range of views than ever. Why not? Is there anything really confidential that Tesco need to say to government?
– Why not publish the details of local authority contracts online? Let the other refuse collection companies see the terms of deals made, so that they can try to beat them in future. Let residents spot that commitments are or aren’t being met – effectively outsourcing parts of contract management to the people with most interest in making sure it works.

The shifts in mindset required are difficult, especially in any bureaucracy, but there’s so much scope to do revolutionary things for very little expenditure (actually, you could do the above ideas within existing budgets, as so many of these authorities already spend heavily on expensive website infrastructures which could be partially repurposed). The key is to deliver some beta projects quickly, probably at local and departmental project levels, and then expand the ones which work.